Tag: elections

Ohio Secretary Of State Forces County To Allow Local Marijuana Vote Despite Prosecutor’s Objection

Ohio’s secretary of state has ordered a county election board to certify a local marijuana decriminalization initiative for the November ballot—meaning that three Ohio localities will be deciding on the reform at the same time voters across the state will have the chance to pass a full legalization measure.

Early voting for military and overseas voters began on Friday. And, on top of statewide legalization on the ballot, voters in the villages of Harbor View, Risingsun and Sugar Grove will also see local initiatives to decriminalize possession of up to 200 grams of cannabis for personal use. That’s a higher possession limit than what would be permitted under the statewide legalization initiative, which would allow adults to have up to 2.5 ounces (about 70 grams).

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) intervened to ensure that Harbor View would see decriminalization on the ballot after the Lucas County Board of Elections voted not to certify the activist-led cannabis measure in light of a local prosecutor’s concerns. After a review, he ordered the board to reverse its decision and qualify what is titled “The OG Wild Bill Marihuana Ordinance.”

Chad Thompson, executive director of the Sensible Movement Coalition (SMC) that has worked to qualify local decriminalization measures in dozens of Ohio cities over recent election cycles, told Marijuana Moment that the board’s initial vote “caught us by complete surprise and we didn’t see it coming.”

Lucas County has historically had a “very supportive” election board that “followed the law,” he said. “Thankfully [LaRose] stepped in and corrected them.”

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Bernie Sanders funneled $200K in campaign cash to wife and stepson’s nonprofit institute, records reveal

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders quietly funneled $200,000 from his campaign’s coffers to his wife’s nonprofit institute, which appears to do very little work and pays six figures’ worth of compensation to her son, Fox News Digital has found.

The independent senator’s committee cut two $100,000 checks to the Sanders Institute for reported charitable contributions in January and March, its Federal Election Commission records show. The expenditures are the largest from the Sanders campaign to any entity this election cycle.

The senator’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, and stepson, David Driscoll, co-established the Sanders Institute in 2017 to act as a think tank to promote progressive voices, The Washington Post wrote at its launch. 

“The purpose is to revitalize democracy in the support of progressive institutions,” Jane Sanders told the Post. “Our feeling is at our point in time, our country is at a crossroads, and people are engaged in a political process that can be opaque.”

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Ecuador presidential candidate assassinated: Fernando Villavicencio is shot dead while leaving a political rally less than two weeks before the vote

Gunmen in Ecuador shot dead presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio as he was leaving a rally on Wednesday night, with less than two weeks to go until a bitterly contested election.

Footage shared on social media showed Villavicencio, 59, being escorted out of the rally venue at 6:20pm local time and into a waiting car. He was climbing into the back seat when gunfire rang out. The windows did not appear to be bulletproof.

One suspect was shot dead in crossfire with security services, the country’s attorney general said, adding that nine people were injured – among them a female candidate for the National Assembly and two police officers. 

Last week Villavicencio, a former journalist known for tackling corruption, said he and his team had been threatened by the leader of a gang linked to drug trafficking. 

In May, announcing his candidacy, he declared that he intended to ‘take on and defeat the mafias which have coopted the state and have society on its knees.’

He was behind at least two other candidates, but had been gaining support in recent days, and was seen as the toughest candidate on organized crime.

General Manuel Iniguez, a deputy commander of the Ecuadoran national police, said a police officer was also injured in the attack, which happened outside a college in the north of Quito.  The hit men launched a grenade toward Villavicencio’s group, but it did not explode.

He was taken to a nearby clinic and pronounced dead in hospital. Shocking video showed the moment he arrived, slumped in a wheelchair and pushed by men in army fatigues. They tried to lift him out the wheelchair and up the steps but were unable to do so, and wheeled him up the ramp as a medical employee rushed out.

The country’s President, Guillermo Lasso, confirmed the assassination of Villavicencio and suggested organized crime was behind his slaying. He later declared a state of emergency in response to the killing. 

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Florida Supreme Court Gives Attorney General More Time To Argue Why Marijuana Legalization Should Be Blocked From 2024 Ballot

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday granted the state attorney general’s request for more time to file a brief arguing why voters should not get a chance to decide on a marijuana legalization initiative on the 2024 ballot.

On the same day that Attorney General Ashely Moody (R)—whose office is seeking to invalidate the cannabis measure—filed a motion seeking the one-week extension, the court agreed to the delay.

The attorney general—as well as the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Drug Free America Foundation—told the court that they had “numerous other responsibilities during the relevant period.” The official also previously requested a two-week deadline extension for initial briefs that the court granted.

Moody’s latest request noted that her office is tied up with fundamental administrative tasks, as well as filing briefs in two other unrelated court cases. Also, it pointed out that the court allowed ACLU of Florida to file its own brief two days after the last response deadline for supporters of the legalization measure.

“As a result, the current deadline gives the opponents just three business days to respond to the arguments in that brief,” the motion said.

Overall, Moody is arguing that the way the initiative’s ballot summary is written is affirmatively misleading to voters on several grounds, which she says is grounds to invalidate the proposal

The attorney general’s office said that they discussed the deadline extension request with the Smart & Safe Florida campaign, which opposed a one-week extension but would accept a shorter two-day delay. Instead, the court granted the full request, making the deadline for a reply brief August 2.

“Multiple extensions of time for the same filing are discouraged,” the court said on Monday. “Absent extenuating circumstances, subsequent requests may be denied.”

State officials have already affirmed that the campaign collected enough valid signatures to secure ballot placement.

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How Democrats & Republicans ‘Stole’ Votes From the Greens, Libertarians in 2020

Many things that everyone knows, are not true. Sometimes, quite rarely, one of those widely-believed falsehoods not only turns out not to be true, but obscures the fact that the exact opposite is true.

Most people believe that small political parties siphon off votes from one of the two major parties. Mainstream media repeatedly declares, without bothering to cite evidence because its obviousness rises to the level of self-evident, that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election (not true) and Jill Stein sucked away enough Democratic votes from Hillary Clinton to put Donald Trump in the White House (also not true).

Let us, for the purpose of this essay, set aside the usual counterarguments to the claim that you shouldn’t vote Green they’re just spoilers: no presidential election is decided by a single vote so you can’t possibly individually change any outcome, people who don’t live in swing states really have no reason to worry about tipping an election, parties ought to have to earn votes, voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil, a little party will never become bigger until we stop overthinking our tactical voting and simply support that candidate and the party we like best.

But—are small parties really electoral succubi? First, a look at Republican losers who blamed third parties for their losses.

Running as a Progressive in 1912, a vengeful Teddy Roosevelt out to punish his former protege for deviating from progressive Republicanism is alleged to have sucked away votes from William Howard Taft. We did wind up with President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat—a result cited as the ultimate example of a third-party candidate splitting a party.

But historians forget to mention that it was a four-way race. Wilson faced his own “spoiler,” from his left: Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party, who got six percent of the popular vote. Taft was such a weak candidate that neither Teddy nor Debs made a difference; Wilson would have won no matter what.

Pundits say Ross Perot created a big enough sucking sound of votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992 to hand the race to Bill Clinton. Pundits are mistaken: Perot pulled equally from the Democrats and the Republicans. Libertarian Gary Johnson is unfairly blamed for contributing to Trump’s defeat in 2020.

Similarly, left-leaning third-parties—since 2000, this has meant the Greens—have never poached from Democrats in big enough numbers to change the outcome. Green Party supporters tend to be leftists like me, who would otherwise not vote at all. If the only two parties on the ballot were the Democrats and Republicans, we’d sit on our hands.

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This Election Season, Beware of These False Promises

As elections approach, sweeping generalizations have a certain allure that often energizes the frustrated and captivates the hopeful. However, it’s essential that we as voters remember that things that seem too good to be true typically are. Here are a few warnings.

First, as far as our finances go, beware of politicians promising that they won’t touch Social Security and Medicare. In reality, they’ll have no choice. For one thing, if they keep this hollow promise, Social Security benefits will be cut across the board in 2033 by over 20 percent. According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, that’s a cut of between $12,000 and $17,000 annually for a traditional retired couple. Medicare faces the same predicament for a variety of reasons.

The only workaround from this reality, which has been known for decades, is for Democrats and Republicans to finally come together for serious reform. That will likely result in a reduction of benefits and an increase in taxes. As unpleasant as it will be, we’d better hope that politicians don’t take the cowardly path and resort to shoving the problem onto Uncle Sam’s proverbial credit card (by paying all benefits that exceed payroll-tax receipts out of general revenues).

As the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl noted recently, “Social Security and Medicare are projected by the CBO to spend $156 trillion in benefits but collect only $87 trillion in payroll taxes and premiums. This $69 trillion cash shortfall will have to be financed by budget deficits, which will in turn be responsible for $47 trillion of interest costs on the national debt.” Who will lend the U.S. government $114 trillion, even at unprecedentedly high interest rates?

That’s a question voters should ask politicians who promise never to touch entitlement programs. Those who claim it’s an easy fix by taxing the rich should be immediately dismissed as unserious. The numbers don’t add up. Any other one-sided ideological answers to an accounting question won’t cut it, either.

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Feds charge Virginia sheriff with selling badges for campaign contributions

The sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia faces federal charges in an alleged scheme to hand out deputy badges in exchange for campaign contributions, Reuters reported.

“In an indictment unsealed on Thursday in the Western District of Virginia, Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Howard Jenkins, 51, is accused of abusing his position by engaging in a scheme to appoint volunteers to serve as auxiliary deputy sheriffs in exchange for bribes,” reported Sarah Lynch. “Through this alleged scheme, prosecutors said he accepted at least $72,500. Three of the men who accepted deputy sheriff appointments — Rick Tariq Rahim, 55, of Great Falls; Fredric Gumbinner, 64, of Fairfax; James Metcalf, 60, of Manassas are also charged in the case.”

According to the report, Jenkins also allegedly accepted a bribe from Rahim to approve a petition to restore his right to carry a gun, in violation of the state’s residency requirements.

“The indictment alleges he authorized auxiliary deputy sheriffs to carry concealed firearms in any state without obtaining permits, encouraged them to pay bribes through other individuals, and disguised the payments as firearms purchases,” said the report. “Undercover FBI agents helped investigate the scheme by posing as people who were interested in becoming auxiliary deputy sheriffs, with one of them even pretending to have a criminal record.”

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